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Chapter 16: Rising in Love: A Partnership in Meditation

Man alone, woman alone, will find the journey very tedious and very long, as they have found it in the past. Because seeing this continuous conflict, all the religions decided that those who wanted to seek should renounce the other - the monks should be celibate, the nuns should be celibate. But in five thousand years of history, how many monks and how many nuns have become realized souls? You cannot even give me names enough to count on ten fingers. And millions of monks and nuns of all religions - Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. What has happened? The path is not so long. The goal is not that far away. But even if you want to go to your neighbor’s house, you will need both your legs. Just jumping on one leg, how far can you go?

I am introducing a totally new vision: men and women together in deep friendship, in a loving, meditative relationship, as organic wholes, can reach the goal any moment they want. Because the goal is not outside you, it is the center of the cyclone; it is the innermost part of your being. But you can find it only when you are whole, and you cannot be whole without the other.

Man and woman are two parts of one whole.

So, rather than wasting time in fighting, try to understand each other. Try to put yourself in the place of the other - try to see as a man sees, try to see as a woman sees. And four eyes are always better than two eyes; you have a full view all four directions are available to you.

But one thing has to be remembered: that without meditation, love is destined to fail; there is no possibility of its being a success. You can pretend and you can deceive others, but you cannot deceive yourself. You know deep down that all the promises love had given to you have remained unfulfilled. Only with meditation does love start taking on new colors, new music, new songs, new dances - because meditation gives you the insight to understand the polar opposite, and in that very understanding the conflict disappears.

All the conflict in the world is because of misunderstanding. You say something; your wife understands something else. Your wife says something; you understand something else. I have seen couples who have lived together for thirty or forty years; still, they seem to be as immature as they were on their first day together. Still the same complaint: “She doesn’t understand what I am saying.” Forty years being together and you have not been able to figure out some way that your wife can understand exactly what you are saying, and you can understand exactly what she is saying.

But I think there is no possibility for it to happen except through meditation, because meditation gives you the qualities of silence, awareness, a patient listening, a capacity to put yourself in the other’s position. It is possible with me; I am not concerned with the trivia of your life. You are here basically to listen and understand. You are here to grow spiritually. Naturally there is no question of conflict, and the harmony arises without any effort. You can love me with totality, because with me your relationship is of meditation. With any other man or with any other woman, if you want to live in harmony you will have to bring the same atmosphere and the same climate that you have brought here.